I had someone install Mint 14.1, I walked her through it over the phone successfully, it's working great, she's a quick study... Now she's having an issue whereby she copies things to clipboard for multiple uses (a game she plays) and it won't right-click/paste what she has saved to comments she's trying to post. I told her to reboot, which she did and it worked again for awhile, but now it's not working at all. It's a wireless mouse and keyboard. the computer is a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop and she never had this issue when she was running windows...

She's almost 1000 miles away from me so I can't be physically in front of her computer to look in her settings. I feel responsible for making this right since she changed to Linux at my suggestion and I promised her I'd be available to deal with any issues she came up against. I was thinking they would all be issues on how to use the system, but it's on me to get this issue dealt with also. Very unexpected, I've never had nor heard of such an issue in any computer regardless of OS in my 25 years of using computers...

If you mean pasting text that you have highlighted elsewhere, it's middle-click for pasting not right-click. If she has another issue, light her right mouse button not work (not popping up a context menu), that may be application specific. Let her try it with two text editing windows open. Firefox or any other web browser is not the place to test these things as there are a lot of evil websites (well, to my mind at least) that block your right-click menu from appearing in your browser. So test such things in a plain text editor, like Gedit, Pluma or Kate.

Also, saying that somebody installed "Mint 14.1" doesn't really narrow it down (MATE and Cinnamon are quite different in underlaying technology). Include what desktop environment the user uses, as that can impact how certain things work with the clipboard.

It's Cinnamon, and I personally only have 2 button mice, I've never bothered with the 3 button variety and I didn't ask her which one she had. I'll have to ask her... It didn't occur to me to ask that question. but it was previously working, stopped, and worked again on reboot, only to stop working again... Thanks I'll find out and post back the answers and whether or not the issue is resolved

Well, she's got the same 2 button w/scroller in the middle that I have and use on all my linux machines with full right-click usability, only hers doesn't work all the time... I have never had, nor heard of anyone having this issue in 25 years of computing, the last 3+ being exclusively on Linux machines. And yes, the scroller will paste when it's clicked, but that's not acceptable. She can right-click/copy, but can't right-click/paste even with a different mouse... I'm totally lost on this issue even after going through her mouse/touchpad settings which were all right.

Have you made her test from a text editor? Again, some websites block certain actions and if you try to highlight some text in your browser and then right-click and select copy from the context menu it may not actually copy anything.

In short; if she can't paste but the right-click menu is accessible, she didn't copy. What does Ctrl+V do?

I think I'm onto something here, she has a wireless keyboard and mouse, both USB devices were plugged in, I had her disconnect the mouse plug and the mouse still worked, I think there is some kind of signal interference issue going on. I think I'm on the right track here. Both mice she tried incidentally would work with the same usb plugged in, both logitechs... I've told her to either find a wired keyboard or buy one and see if the problem is resolved at that point. I'm just not clear on why she didn't have issues with her Windows Vista that was previously installed on that computer... I think from here on out I will only assist people moving to Linux who have laptop computers as the others I migrated to Linux with no difficulties all had laptops... Just doing my part to bury Microsoft, one user at a time...

I've found that the hard part about getting someone migrated is dealing with them getting the disk image onto a bootable USB stick, since it's hard for me to walk someone through a windows operation after 3+ years not touching a windows machine (the last version of windows I used was XP). The rest is a piece of cake if I'm migrating them to Mint. They have a good basic understanding of how to use Mint after I've walked them through the fundamentals.

Next time; use TeamViewer to remotely connect to their desktop and help them through it It's trivial to install on Windows, you should be able to manage installing it on Linux, and it doesn't require any firewall adjustments or such complicated steps to work.

xenopeek wrote:Next time; use TeamViewer to remotely connect to their desktop and help them through it It's trivial to install on Windows, you should be able to manage installing it on Linux, and it doesn't require any firewall adjustments or such complicated steps to work.

I downloaded the TeamViewer and installed it, I wasn't aware of that application previously, I will use it in the future, thank you very much:-)

Flemur wrote:Perhaps related: the copy buffer is emptied when you close the app you copied from, e.g.:- Write something with gedit.- Copy it.- Close gedit.- Try to paste into a browser comment - nothing to paste.

IIRC, windows doesn't do this.

I looked into this, I was not previously aware of it, this is not the issue, thank you for your input though, it could be an issue that I can address at another time with someone elses system if necessary. Thank you:-)

I think I found it, on using TeamViewer I found that the Dell specifications that I'd looked up at their homepage previous to this install said she had a dual-core 2.2Ghz processor, on viewing her system remotely I find that she has a SINGLE core 1.6Ghz... I had her download the 64bit disk image instead of the 32bit disk image... I'm surprised the system works with only that one glitch on the mouse right-click function... Though the processor specifications I found online say the single-core 1.6Ghz processor works on a 64bit instruction set, I'm hoping I can fix this by having her install the 32bit version... Is there any possibility that I'm right?

A 64 bit ISO wouldn't even boot on a 32 bit processor. In any case, that has nothing to do with being able to select to paste text from the right-click menu. I'd suggest you try keeping focus on the issue and narrow it down:- Have you made her test from a text editor to text editor? Can you confirm it is only an issue in the game she plays?- What does Ctrl+V do in the game?

If it is specific to the game, it's specific to the game. Which game is it?

ctrl-v does the same as clicking the scroll wheel, it pastes to comments. It will paste anywhere when the scroll wheel is clicked. The right-click issue seems to be functional/nonfunctional, mostly nonfunctional. The game is ArenaXT. (http://www.arenaxt.com) It's a time-consumer game if one has nothing better to do, my plate is full with computer stuff to deal with since I moved, still trying to find a wifi card that's Linux compatible for my old desktop that I can't hardwire to the router now.

her wireless keyboard is logitech, her mice are both logitech, and the both mice will work without their own usb connection being plugged in, so they must be going through the keyboard interface. At this point, if the 64bit Mint is right for this Intel Celeron 1.6GHz single-core processor (Intel® Celeron® Processor 420), then all I can do is wait for her to get a wired keyboard and plug the mouse in by itself to see if the issue clears up. Meanwhile everything else works perfectly and better than it ever did while running windows.

I've never seen or heard of this issue before in any operating system and the keyboard interface seems to be the only logical conclusion without any facts to support another one

I was concerned about the 64bit/32bit difference, but now I've learned another thing I wasn't aware of, this has been a very informative day so far. Though I wonder if (mouse issue aside) that system might run a little faster with the 32bit?

I'll check back if you have any further thoughts on the issue, She's going to have to deal with clicking her scroll wheel to paste for now until she gets another keyboard to ascertain if I'm right.

Thank you very much, I appreciate your experience and taking the time to help me deal with this issue

nsShe should be able to right-click > paste outside of that game, but yes like we said it might be some applications prevent you from using the right-click menu that way. It still sounds application specific.